Imperial Agent Drabbles
by EverSteam
Summary: What will be a few short pieces of the Imperial Agent and Vector. Will be updated sporadically and vaguely follow eachother. Set randomly throughout the I.A. storyline. I don't know how else to summarize it other than saying 'please read, enjoy and review if you feel like it.'
1. Chapter 1

**Chapter One: Dromund Kaas**

'I will never be your assassin, you weak schutta.'

The lightening is all around me and all through. Every small crevice, every part, everything screams in pain. Everything except my mouth. It lifts me off the ground and I float in white, crackling pain that blinds my vision.

And then it stops. I land on my feet, with one less life. The pretend lord collapses from the strain. I leave her bleeding and gasping, my back straight and chin proud. Once around the corner, once out of sight, I collapse to the ground. I let out the breath I had been holding in a loud cough, blood and vomit coming out with the air. I vomit again before I can get more air. And only when my stomach is empty can I breathe in the soiled air.

Soft footsteps approach. I attempt to sit against the wall. I attempt to stand. But I can't.

'We have found you. Let us heal you.'

I try to worm away from the bug man but his tranquil movements are faster and hold me in place.

'We felt the attack. We are sorry we could not help,' he apologises as he patches my wounds, his hands light and gentle.

I spit some more blood to the side. 'What are you doing here, Vector?'

'We are here to heal your wounds,' he explains with a mildly perplexed look.

'That's not I meant,' I testily answer as I shakily stand, my hands finding support in the wall.

'We fight for you; we fight for the hive.' He makes it sound like that explains everything. I look into his black, vacant eyes and curse myself.

'That isn't enough, Vector. Don't speak to me again until you can offer me more.' I walk away with as little of a limp and slouch as I can. He silently follows, silently sits next to me in the taxi and silently enters the ship with me. The next day we silently leave together, silently fight together, silently eat together and silently live together. The pattern doesn't end. It will go on for as long as he is here.

I can't share him with an entire hive and Intelligence. I need him to work for me and only me. Yes. That's it. He can't have divided loyalties. It endangers us. Endangers the mission. _And tears me apart already._

_I'm so fucking screwed._


	2. Chapter 2

A nock appears on my door. I pull the shirt I had been using to clean my armour on over my naked body and put the wrist guards I had been polishing down next to me on the bed with the rest of the polished armour.

'Enter,' I call.

To my surprise, Vector stands at the open door. He looks around with curiosity, something slightly inhuman in his movements. I wait. He eventually looks at me and hesitates.

'Last night we tried our first ration bar. We savoured the taste for two hours. We could taste every nutrient, every chemical compound, every trace of foil. Do you know what joining the Killiks does to a person?'

'Makes them unique in that they actually enjoy eating ration bars?' He smiles and shakes his head. I can't help but grin back. It's far too real and far too happy. But the feeling it causes prompts me to continue. 'I can't believe you get excited about eating a ration bar. That's very cute, Vector.'

He smiles in the way only he does, like only part of him is here and that part is feeling something that struggles against the rest; like a man on a spice trip. It causes a pain a Cipher should never feel. But then, I'm not a very good Cipher since he came aboard.

'We will let you know when we try the Chaka noodles.'

I choke back a chuckle and it turns into a cough. _Did bug-boy just flirt back?_

'Did you only come to tell me that your new meaning and dedication is to tasting every form of Imperial military gruel available?'

The smile widens but then fades slowly. 'No, but that does bring us to something more serious. Keeper described us a covert assault agent. Our position as Dawn Herald gives us that capacity. We just don't know if that's the only reason we're here.' He pauses for a moment. 'Or if it should be.' The perplexed look of the last time we spoke crosses his face again.

'I consider you a major assets. Though I have been conducting research into the abilities of Joiners there is little information to read and what there is shrouded in bias. I would be grateful for you to tell me your skills so I can better use you as I am still learning your talents beyond a taste tester,' I end with a smile.

_Good. You sounded like an Agent. You are an Agent. __**Just not when it comes to him,**_ a malicious voice whispers. _Shut up._ I couldn't let this stale mate continue. I was going to approach him tonight. Three weeks without his company is all I could stand.

'So are we in a way.'

'You have your connection to the Killiks, an impressive ability with an electrostaff, improved eye sight, sences and a rationale though sometimes queer perspective as well as the increased physical strength of being a joiner.'

'But... our whole life, we have been a diplomat and a man. Whatever else we become, perhaps it is best we do not forget it.'

He leaves silently, the door hissing shut behind him. I fall back onto my bed and sigh. _A man, huh? _I don't sleep. I stay up all night thinking of Vector's words and wondering if it is his answer. It's meaningless as long as he can promise to be my man. I'm getting in far too deep and I'm enjoying the slow, painful drown as he presses me further under.


	3. Chapter 3

**A/N: Another short piece because JoleeKee asked so nicely ;)**

**I hope it's just as good. :)**

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**A few weeks later on Nar Shaddaa, Chapter Two...**

'We've been wondering, Agent.'

I lean further back against the bar, my elbows sliding on the wet surface. I look around the bar as we continue to wait for the contact.

'I've told you my name is Jas,' I reply lightly, yet with a firm enough undertone that he gets my meaning. It isn't exactly a good idea to be shouting out my profession on Nar Shaddaa.

'Yes, but we do not like the name. It is not familiar to us. And it is not who you are,' he replies in that earnest tone that tugs my heart and hitches my breathing.

'I don't get to choose my name.'

'We understand, Jas.' The calm diplomat comes as close as he probably can to spitting the word out.

'Good.' I finish my drink that I was idling swilling in my hand and glide it down the bar, gesturing to the bartender to make me another.

'But we were wondering,' Vector begins again slowly and carefully. I can hear the name 'Agent' shouted into the pause. I unfoundedly become overcome by a desire to hear him say my real name. But he won't and never will. It doesn't exist anymore in any other record than that of my own memory.

'Do you have a family, siblings... a husband?' There's a slight hesitation before the last and it makes me smirk into my glass. I glance at the Joiner who stares intently at his own untouched drink. My smirk widens and I return to watching the patrons about the cantina.

'Are you asking if I'm single, Vec?' I tease.

His back straightens a little at the nickname we decided on for this job. I find it easy to use and kind of like it.

I laugh lightly and he glances at me, then away, then at me again. For a moment I feel like his gaze moves down my body still casually reclining against the bar.

'That was part of the question, yes,' he replies again stiffly. I laugh a little more and turn to him, leaning over closer, an elbow still on the bar. He glances at me as I move and tries to keep his eyes up. I notice the distraction and laugh some more. I guess he was right - part of him is still a man.

'We would like to hear the answer.'

'You're cute, Vec. But there isn't room for that in this business. Do you think that in the twenty years that have been as busy as last months since you joined, I would have had time for something like that?'

'No, we suppose not. We did not mean to pry.'

I laugh again and turn completely to the bar, putting him out of his conflict. 'It doesn't matter, Vec. Maybe you haven't noticed, but I find plenty of men to fill my nights with.' His frown tightens and I smirk. I raise an eyebrow and give him a devious smile. 'Are you interested in filling those nights instead?'

'We were merely wondering how anyone keeps a tether on the real world in this line of work.' A smooth evasion and rejection. He's still a diplomat. But it's smoothness doesn't change the stab of pain it causes.

I roll my eyes and give him a cynical smile. 'Sure you were, Vec.'

'We were. None of us can live in isolation forever.'

'Trust me, you can.' I try to hide the bitterness in my voice but I don't think I do because he glances at me with concerned understanding. I don't need his pity. I have fun for a night and then it's over. It's always been enough before. And if I'm to find any contentment, it will have to continue being enough.

'We see.'

'If this... life,' I lamely begin, 'ever gets too much for you then... well, I'm here Vector as just your leader or more. You aren't alone.' I look away from his earnest, patient and listening gaze in awkward embarrassment.

'Neither are you... Jas.' I glance at him and see a small and sly smile. I try to contain the blush that spreads to my cheeks but I can't. I grunt and look away from him, praying for an indifference I don't feel. _Why does he have to have a sense of humour? Why does he have to have such a perfect, earnest smile?_

'It's odd, living outside the nest. There's an intimacy among the Kind that can't be replaced. Still, to bridge that gaps between persons... we will remember your words.'

'Hopefully not all of them,' I grumble wryly into my glass, trying to hide my uncomfortable pleasure.

The Joiner is the only one that can break my perfect charades. I shouldn't of brought him for this. I should have left him on the ship. But leaving him on the ship as I go out is getting harder and harder. The words 'see you later' become more difficult to say and less sure. Because I know the day may come, especially after the terrorist network, that I won't see him later. Living has suddenly become important, something I need to do so I can keep seeing him, hearing him, coaxing out smiles and just being near him.

'Only the ones that matter,' he replies with a smile that makes me feel like more of him than usual is here with me and it is happy to be with me.

'And which ones are those?' I ask back with a flirtatious smile, leaning close to him. This is easier, the casual flirts. It doesn't satisfy me but the earnest talks will end up hurting me a lot more by the end.

'The ones where you-'

Our attention is taken away by the arrival of our contact at the middle of the bar. We stand up from our seats in the corner.

'Why don't we finish this in private later, Vec?' I whisper into his ear, my lips brushing it lightly, my body pressing against him, before walking over to our contact.

Even as I flirt with the contact named Hunter, even as I receive my clear orders, a part of me is with Vector and wondering what the frack the Joiner is thinking now.

_Am I alone in this feeling?_


	4. Chapter 4

**A/N: For some reason, this is in third person.**

**Set in Chapter two of the game on the way to Quesh - two months after last conversation or there abouts. I may jump back in time in a later 'Chapter' or maybe not.**

**Either way, please enjoy. :)**

* * *

She stares into the heart of the shooting stars of hyperspace, but the passing lights that become white streaks don't hold the answers or solutions to what twists her mind and distils peace. They don't tell her anything except their journey isn't over yet.

She becomes impatient again and checks the ships course to Quesh. There are still three hours to go. The pain comes again in her mind and the visions begin to lurk in her peripheral vision. She pulls her slender, blue and bare legs into her body and covers her head in her arms, closing her eyes tight. It seems to her like hours pass of whispers that make her grip and rip at her dark blue hair, curl tighter and tighter on her chair - but they are really only minutes.

A tap is at the door. Her pain ends.

'Come in, Vector,' she calls softly. She's trying to quietly hide from something that is inside her, something that will never leave her alone. She flicks the holo image of the ships course up again. It's disappointingly similar to the last time she checked. Her arm returns to coil around her legs, finding no comfort, warmth and rest around the smooth legs.

The tall, dark man at the door takes a step into the cockpit and looks around in mild confusion of what to do now he's inside. She seems to notice and beckons him to the seat next to her with an order to sit but she doesn't look at him. Her eyes have returned to the streaming lights.

'Beautiful, isn't it, Vector?' He looks to her with a question in his eyes but she only keeps silent and staring. He's more entranced by the agent than the beauty of the stars. 'If I could,' she eventually continues in a distant, isolated voice, 'I would sit with you in hyperspace forever, watching worlds pass us by.'

'You do not wish to have part in the song of the universe?' The Dawn Herald watches her with a curiosity he can't quite yet understand and a feeling of warmth at his inclusion in her despondent dreams. He can sense something wrong with her but doesn't know what it is and still understands that he shouldn't ask. He can only hope she will tell him and allow him to help in whatever limited way he can.

'Not the part I am meant to play.' The bitterness in her voice and her reluctances confuses him as well as the foreign sentiment. He doesn't comment and the sombre and distant agent is silently thankful to the oblivious Joiner. She knows she shouldn't talk like this. She knows these thoughts only complicate and confuse when things should be clear and precise. Being an agent was easier when it was of her free will.

'Agent,' he begins steadily, finally broaching the subject he had come to discuss with her. What else can he call her when she only goes by 'Imperial agent' and 'Cipher Nine'? He isn't insulted that she hasn't shared her name with him or the Rattataki. It is understandable to Vector.

'We had time to think since reuniting with the Killik Colony.' She looks at him slyly, he lips and eyebrow slightly raised in a fraction of the devious amusement they used to show. 'Not that our work hasn't kept us busy but...'

Her small smile makes him hesitate. She hasn't smiled the same since Nar Shaddaa. When she does, it's because her mind is light years away and only her body is left here. Her aura has become darker and confusing. When she would speak to him, there was a confidence and liveliness in her smile and bright red eyes that made him feel... something Killiks don't. It left him knowing part of where he stood.

_'Getting a little too familiar with Vector for my comfort.' _He replied that was how we are. It is how Joiners are. So what is the intimacy that he shares with the beautiful Chiss? But he is unsure if there is something there. The signs are right but he can't read them like he used to.

She smiles at his hesitation. There is something disarming in the Joiner that leaves her speaking in an unguarded way. She can't take him on missions any more. She can't concentrate with him near and his influence makes her act in ways she normally wouldn't. His black eyes and smile she fights hard to earn break away twenty years of training. Love is a complication she can't afford. No agent can afford it. Maybe if their relationship was more assured, pronounced or defined then close conversation and looks, it would be what she needs. An agent doesn't work with what they don't have, only what they do.

'We never actually thanked you for allowing our pilgrimage.'

She glances at him again with sly eyes that only have a spark of life in them. 'No, you didn't, Vector. It was quite rude. I almost spent the night crying,' she teases, poking his rigid, left leg with a small blue toe before retracting it back into her secure ball.

Like all her familiar motions and touches, he doesn't know how to respond. However, it and her perfect, thin lipped smile allow him to know she only teases and to not worry. But as her leg joins its partner in her arms embrace, her eyes return to the window and the smile fades.

'You should come with us next time,' he puts forward calmly, shaking like a freshly hatched Killik on the inside.

'With a blanket,' her eyes become devious again and a pleasant teasing smirk twists her lips, 'and some ration bars we'd go sightseeing under the stars?' The picture is impossibly perfect to her. But agents don't have picnics. But the imagine makes Vector break his distant tranquillity and smile. She attempts to return it for reasons that are unique to Vector.

'You just want me alone, Vector.'

'We have you alone now,' he points out with a larger smile. She reframes from pointing out the differences to the Joiner. For now, though, she is never alone.

'We could use a further change from Killik company. You're a novelty.' He slightly bows to her in a chivalrous way that strangely doesn't irk her. But his words sink her heart in a way he doesn't notice and call back the reasons her emotions and dreams for the Joiner are irrational. Nothing good can come of this relationship or her feelings. She is only a novelty: an alien to even him.

'There is something else, agent: in the old days, as a diplomat, we used to be able to read people. Since our Joining that has gotten harder so we must be direct.' The explanation is given with searching eyes as he faces her when she won't face him. Her intuition told her at the beginning of his sentence where this was going. She had a chance to run and still does. But she is too weak and afraid of moving. The visions still haunt her peripheral but they are kept at bay by her focus on Vector's voice and the stars.

'Is our relationship becoming unprofessional?'

She chuckles as he finally asks something so awkward to anyone else. She thinks that in Imperial Intelligence, there are no boundaries in relations. The closer you are to someone, the easier it is to manipulate them or kill them. But she doesn't want to do either to the Vector, even though she should.

He isn't sure about her laughter and whether she is laughing at him. He regards her with serious patience as she continues to chuckle, a bitter emotion in her eyes. He was confused before the Killik celebrations but more so after as she danced close to him, causing reactions he hadn't felt so keenly since the Joining, her lips hardly ever leaving his ear as she whispered taunting words.

'I get to decide what is professional.'

'I see. So tell us, agent - just how friendly are we?'

Something inside the twisted woman breaks and she can't stand to look at the man she loves so foolishly and entirely. She stands and walks to the door pausing but not looking back to the confused Dawn Herald.

'If you need me to tell you the answer to that question, Vector, we shouldn't be having this conversation,' she quietly replies before passing through the threshold. But she doesn't walk far, only a few steps before leaning against the wall and silently letting long held back tears roll down her face and steadily drip on the rigid, steel floor.

'You are perplexing, agent. But we will abide by your wishes,' she hears the Joiner reply. That isn't what she wants. She is an unreasonable woman and not a rational agent when it comes to Vector. She feels a sharp pang as the stupid hope he would follow is crushed, it's liquid remnants pouring down her cheeks faster.

The Dawn Herald remains ignorant of her hopes and tears, looking out the window similar to how she did but his posture is stiff in the chair. He thinks about her words, not her last but her first. _'I would sit with you in hyperspace forever, watching worlds pass us by.' _ Half of him cherishes and shares the dream: the other craves to be part of the Hive again. If she wanted it, if their relationship grew to it, he wonders if he could ever give her more than half his dedication.

She curses and stupidly kicks the wall, her toe almost breaking. She curses harder and cries harder, slipping into her room. _I love you, Vector. Don't make me say it out loud._


	5. Chapter 5

**A/N:** It's been a while. Sorry. But here is **Belsavis: Part One!**

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'When you destroyed the core machine you released my microdroid swarm. Autamata like gnats that can drill through flesh. They will infect your associate, and by the time you reach Megasecurity Ward 23, you will stand alone.'

'No! Don't you dare touch him.' The agent shouts the words, her outraged voice echoing back to them again and again as if her livid words no intention to ever die or fade.

'It is already done,' the broken, female voice replies. It causes a shiver to go down the agent's back and her hair to stand on end but she doesn't let it show. She's too angry for fear.

'I will find you and fucking tear you apart piece by piece and somehow make you feel it. I will be your doom,' the agent vows in a low voice that doesn't echo but is more terrifying. She has never said words she means more than them.

There is no reply. She doesn't look at Vector as she storms from the complex. He doesn't speak but she can feel his black eyes watching her back. She wants to know what feeling they have in amongst the black but she's terrified that if she looks at him, she will see him falling apart: red sores and blood spilling and expanding like blooming flowers through his armour until he is nothing. She can let him see that he means far from nothing to her.

When they reach the exit she breathes in the fresh air, the smell of pollen and smoke making her head feel light and causing her to double over coughing. She next finds herself on the ground, Vector kneeling over her with a look of deep concern, his hand holding the back of her head of the hard ground.

'You were injured in the explosion. Let us heal you.'

She tries moves away from him, her armour becoming scratched on the ground, but she's too weak to move more than a metre.

'I can heal myself,' she replies in as strained voice, her fury threatening to break through the forced calm. Agent's don't get angry.

'As you wish.' Vector looks away from her and stands. He is confused by her rejection of his offer and her retraction from his proximity. She's never withdrawn from him before and has often moved close to his side and sought his company, always leaving him pleased and lost. But he can understand her anger. He has felt it when one of the colony is threatened or attacked, only she always insists on a distance from her crew members, correcting him when he called their ship 'the hive'.

She begins to heal her wounds, letting it absorb her concentration. All she can think is that she shouldn't be so foolish when Vector could disappear from her in an instant. She curses herself and tells her to pull it together. She isn't becoming the agent she should be.

When she's done, she stands up and walks away without a word. Vector comes to stand beside her, matching his stride easily with hers. His eyes move around the planet and sometimes she feels he can see things she can't. They never look at her.

'We sense something troubling you.'

She turns on him sharply, his body running into hers. She stares up at him and clenches her fists.

'I will not let you die,' she hisses without a thought to what she's doing or saying. For the first time ever she's too angry and scared too think.

'We feel our song is not at its end but if-'

'No 'if'.' She poke her finger into his chest despite their hardly enough room between them for it to fit. 'And no 'but.' She slashes the same finger through the air and stands on her toes to glare her meaning into his eyes more easily. 'You will leave this fucking prison alive.'

'We are thankful for your concern but-'

'No 'but's!' She didn't mean to shout it. She wasn't acting like an agent. Her crew should be expendable: no attachments, no concern, no pain. Why was the Joiner always an exception? She knew the answer and she didn't know how much longer she could avoid or poorly hide it.

'We do not mean to anger you, agent. We only mean to tell you if it is to be our songs end, we cannot let it pass without...' Vector looks away in what can only be seen to the agent as embarrassment or timidity.

Before she can prompt him to speak, walk away or shout at him for using the word 'if', he smoothly moves his arm around waist, the other hooking around her back, and kisses her slowly and deeply on her lips. He moves his hand to the back of her neck and presses her closer. She doesn't react for a long moment but then she wraps her arms around him, holding him closer. She doesn't want to let him go. It's a dangerous and stupid feeling but she can't remove it. She can only kiss him back with more need and pressure. She has kissed a lot of men before but she has never enjoyed the feel of another's tongue or soft lips as much as his. He tastes and feels like no man or alien before and against all training, she wants to never kiss another man.

He smiles as much as he can when she kisses him back. A thrill passes through him that he hadn't felt since his joining and meets her urgency with his. He loves her as much and as completely as he can. She isn't something that should be left alone and he never intends to.

But then they hear something that makes them move apart in an instant and draw their weapons. She curses under breath as the rift lurker charges. The Joiner can hear it and smiles.

When it lies dead at their feet she takes Vector's hand but only looks forward down their path. She feels embarrassed and awkward in a way she has never felt before and in a way twenty years of training taught her not to.

'I will not let you go again,' she firmly asserts, walking away and pulling him behind her before he can respond.

And she doesn't let him go. They fight and walk across Belsavis hand in hand, only breaking apart to kill stray rift lurkers or Esh-kha. When she claims it again, never looking straight at him, he only clasps it tightly and smiles, trying and failing to keep his eyes off her as he feels a war waging in him.

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**A/N:**That was really fluffy, I know. But I couldn't help it. I may write pieces that go in between the last two or set in a slightly different universe once I finish part two but until then...


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